The doctor who has produced the only public medical record about Donald Trump during his presidential campaign reportedly said he spent only five minutes writing it.
Harold Bornstein, Trump’s doctor who wrote a four-paragraph note last December declaring the GOP nominee to be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” said Friday that he spent very little time on the note.
“I try to get four or five lines down as fast as possible so that they would be happy,” he told NBC News, explaining that he penned the note as he waited for a limo to pick him up. “In the rush, I think some of those words didn’t come out exactly the way they were meant.”
Bornstein said he added some hyperbole to the note because “I think I picked up his kind of language and then I just interpreted it to my own.”
Asked about Trump’s health, Bornstein told NBC: “I don’t think he’s in any better or worse (shape) than the average person that goes and exercises every single day,” he said. “Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink — and that’s simply the best advantage you can have to live — and he’s got a good family history.”
Trump and his allies have raised suspicions about Hillary Clinton’s health in recent days, but he and his campaign have released virtually no other records about his own health beyond Bornstein’s note. As CNN’s Brianna Keilar put it on “The Situation Room” this week, “There is nothing that would lead you to believe he is healthy. … His letter from his doctor is borderline ridiculous when you talk to other doctors who look at it.”
Trump, at age 70, would be the oldest man to assume the presidency if elected in November, about eight months senior to Ronald Reagan when he was first sworn-in more than 35 years ago. But both he and Clinton, according to a federal life expectancy model from 2013, are statistically likely to live comfortably through and beyond potential second terms in the White House, well into their 80s.
There is little in Trump’s personal medical history or lifestyle to suggest he is disproportionately disposed to future risks.